GOV.UK Pay

UK government digital payment service providing a REST API for accepting card payments, managing payment links, and processing refunds for government digital services. Built and operated by the Government Digital Service (GDS), GOV.UK Pay enables over 1,500 public sector organisations to take payments securely without managing their own PCI DSS compliance.

GOV.UK Pay publishes 5 APIs on the APIs.io network, including Agreements API, Authorise card payments API, Card payments API, and 2 more. Tagged areas include Payments, Government, UK, Public Sector, and REST.

The GOV.UK Pay catalog on APIs.io includes 2 JSON-LD contexts and 1 Spectral governance ruleset.

GOV.UK Pay’s developer surface includes authentication and 8 more developer resources.

📡 Source on GitHub

45.4/100 developing ▬ flat Agent 43/100 agent native open core · MIT Full breakdown ↓
scored 2026-09-08 · rubric v0.20.0

AccessFreeSelf serve⚡ Free to try

1 APIs

Payments Government UK Public Sector REST PCI DSS Refunds Recurring Payments Webhook

Kin Score

Kin Score How this is scored →
scored 2026-09-08 · rubric v0.20.0

Composite quality — 45.4/100 · developing

Contract Quality 9.8 / 16

Developer Ergonomics 2.8 / 13

Access Clarity 6.2 / 13

Operational Transparency 3.8 / 8

Contract Governance 0.8 / 8

Discoverability 4.5 / 7

Regulatory Posture 6.1 / 15

Open Source Surface 6.5 / 10

Create-or-Update Ergonomics 0.0 / 10

Agent readiness — 43/100 · agent native

Machine-Readable Contract 18 / 18

Agentic Access Contract 10 / 10

Documented Reversibility 6 / 6

MCP Server 0 / 12

Machine-Readable Auth 10 / 10

Idempotency 9 / 9

Stable Error Semantics 8 / 8

Request/Response Examples 7 / 7

Rate-Limit Signaling 7 / 7

Typed Event Surface 6 / 6

Agent Skills 0 / 5

Well-Known Catalog 0 / 4

Consent & Bot Identity 0 / 3

A2A Agent Card 0 / 8

Dry-Run / Simulate Mode 0 / 4

Delegated User Identity 0 / 6

Protected Resource Metadata 0 / 5

Registration Without a Human 0 / 6

Agentic Commerce Well-Known Document 0 / 5

Regulatory Posture applies to this provider. Its tags matched the Payments regime, so Regulatory Posture carries 15 points of the composite. If this regime is wrong for your business, say so on your provider repo — the applicability map is public and we will correct it.

Open Source Surface applies to this provider. This product is open source and we read its repository directly, so Open Source Surface carries 10 points of the composite. It is scored from what the repository actually publishes — a security policy, a contribution guide, a release history, a code of conduct — read live from the provider rather than inferred from our own catalog pointers. This facet adds; nothing was taken away to make room for it. An open-source project is not excused from the commercial facets, because exemption would strip it of the points it does earn. If we have the wrong repository, or this product is not open source, say so on your provider repo and we will drop the facet rather than have you publish against it.

Create-or-Update Ergonomics applies to this provider. This API accepts writes, so it carries 10 points of the composite. It is scored from the published contracts themselves: whether a caller can create-or-update in one call, whether the write accepts a key the caller already holds, and whether the response says which branch ran. Without that, every write needs a search-and-branch in front of it, and the first time that check is skipped a duplicate record is created. Scored against the observed mean rather than raw — a provider at the catalog average is unchanged by this facet, not penalised by it.

The six quality facets above are damped to 65 points between them, because both conditional facets apply and carry 35 points together. That is why each facet's contribution is shown against a damped maximum: raising a quality facet moves the composite by 65% of its nominal weight, not 100%. The full arithmetic is at apis.io/rating/.

Improve this rating by publishing the missing artifacts — every area above can be raised, and the full rubric is at apis.io/rating/. Every facet and dimension name above is a link: it opens that measurement's own page — what it means, the exact checks that feed it, how the whole catalog distributes on it, and the providers at the top of it. This rating is computed from github.com/api-evangelist/gov-uk-pay: open an issue to ask a question, or submit a pull request to add artifacts. Submit an artifact on GitHub — free → Manage your own listing — the Influence plan, $499/mo →

APIs 5

Individual APIs this provider publishes, each with its own machine-readable definition.

GOV.UK Pay Agreements API

The Agreements API from GOV.UK Pay — 3 operation(s) for agreements.

GOV.UK Pay Authorise card payments API

The Authorise card payments API from GOV.UK Pay — 1 operation(s) for authorise card payments.

GOV.UK Pay Card payments API

The Card payments API from GOV.UK Pay — 5 operation(s) for card payments.

GOV.UK Pay Disputes API

The Disputes API from GOV.UK Pay — 1 operation(s) for disputes.

GOV.UK Pay Refunding card payments API

The Refunding card payments API from GOV.UK Pay — 3 operation(s) for refunding card payments.

Open Collections 6

Open, tool-agnostic API collections (OpenAPI-derived and Bruno).

API Collection

OPEN COLLECTION

GOV.UK Pay Agreements API

OPEN COLLECTION

GOV.UK Pay Agreements Authorise card payments API

OPEN COLLECTION

GOV.UK Pay Agreements Card payments API

OPEN COLLECTION

GOV.UK Pay Agreements Disputes API

OPEN COLLECTION

GOV.UK Pay Agreements Refunding card payments API

OPEN COLLECTION

Pricing Plans 1

Published pricing tiers and plan structures.

Plans

1 plans

PLANS

FinOps 1

Cost, billing, and metering signals for API financial operations.

Finops

FINOPS

Semantic Vocabularies 2

JSON-LD contexts and semantic vocabularies used across these APIs.

Api Context

0 classes · 0 properties

JSON-LD

context Context

0 classes · 64 properties

JSON-LD

Spectral Rules 1

Spectral governance rulesets for linting and validating these APIs.

GOV.UK Pay API Rules

5 rules · 4 warnings 1 info

SPECTRAL

JSON Schema 46

Standalone JSON Schema definitions for this provider's data models.

Address

5 properties

JSON SCHEMA

Agreement

8 properties

JSON SCHEMA

AgreementSearchResults

5 properties

JSON SCHEMA

AuthorisationRequest

5 properties

JSON SCHEMA

AuthorisationSummary

1 properties

JSON SCHEMA

CardDetails

8 properties

JSON SCHEMA

CardDetailsFromResponse

7 properties

JSON SCHEMA

CreateAgreementRequest

3 properties

JSON SCHEMA

CreateCardPaymentRequest

14 properties

JSON SCHEMA

CreatePaymentResult

18 properties

JSON SCHEMA

DisputeDetailForSearch

11 properties

JSON SCHEMA

DisputeLinksForSearch

1 properties

JSON SCHEMA

DisputesSearchResults

5 properties

JSON SCHEMA

EmbeddedRefunds

1 properties

JSON SCHEMA

ErrorResponse

2 properties

JSON SCHEMA

Exemption

3 properties

JSON SCHEMA

ExternalMetadata

1 properties

JSON SCHEMA

Link

2 properties

JSON SCHEMA

Outcome

1 properties

JSON SCHEMA

PaymentDetailForSearch

27 properties

JSON SCHEMA

PaymentEvent

4 properties

JSON SCHEMA

PaymentEventLink

1 properties

JSON SCHEMA

PaymentEvents

3 properties

JSON SCHEMA

PaymentInstrument

3 properties

JSON SCHEMA

PaymentLinks

8 properties

JSON SCHEMA

PaymentLinksForEvents

1 properties

JSON SCHEMA

PaymentLinksForSearch

5 properties

JSON SCHEMA

PaymentRefundRequest

2 properties

JSON SCHEMA

PaymentSearchResults

5 properties

JSON SCHEMA

PaymentSettlementSummary

3 properties

JSON SCHEMA

PaymentState

5 properties

JSON SCHEMA

PaymentWithAllLinks

27 properties

JSON SCHEMA

PostLink

4 properties

JSON SCHEMA

PrefilledCardholderDetails

2 properties

JSON SCHEMA

Refund

7 properties

JSON SCHEMA

RefundDetailForSearch

7 properties

JSON SCHEMA

RefundForSearchResult

3 properties

JSON SCHEMA

RefundLinksForSearch

2 properties

JSON SCHEMA

RefundSearchResults

5 properties

JSON SCHEMA

RefundSettlementSummary

1 properties

JSON SCHEMA

RefundSummary

3 properties

JSON SCHEMA

RefundsResponse

2 properties

JSON SCHEMA

RequestError

4 properties

JSON SCHEMA

SearchNavigationLinks

5 properties

JSON SCHEMA

SettlementSummary

1 properties

JSON SCHEMA

ThreeDSecure

1 properties

JSON SCHEMA

Scroll for all 46

Security Posture 3

Authentication, domain security, vulnerability disclosure, and trust-center signals.

Gov Uk Pay Authentication

http · 1 scheme

SECURITY

Gov Uk Pay Domain Security

TLSv1.3 · DMARC

SECURITY

Gov Uk Pay Trust Center

PCI DSS

SECURITY

Agentic Access 1

Recommended x-agentic-access execution contracts for AI agents.

Gov Uk Pay Agentic Access

16 operations · 7 acting

AGENTIC

Resources

Documentation 1

Reference material describing how the API behaves

ContributionGuide

ContributionGuide

Agent Surfaces 1

MCP servers, agent skills, and machine-readable catalogs

AgenticAccess

AgenticAccess

Build 1

SDKs, sample code, and the tooling you integrate with

CodeOfConduct

CodeOfConduct

Access & Security 3

Authentication, authorization, and security posture

TrustCenter

TrustCenter

DomainSecurity

DomainSecurity

Authentication

Authentication

Operate 2

Status, limits, changes, and where to get help

IssueTracker

IssueTracker

Releases

Releases

Commercial 1

Pricing, plans, and the legal terms of use

License

License

Source (apis.yml)

name: GOV.UK Pay
description: UK government digital payment service providing a REST API for accepting card payments, managing payment links,
  and processing refunds for government digital services. Built and operated by the Government Digital Service (GDS), GOV.UK
  Pay enables over 1,500 public sector organisations to take payments securely without managing their own PCI DSS compliance.
deliveryModel:
  model: open-core
  license: MIT
  open_source: true
  commercial: true
  callable_host: true
  label: Open core · an OSS project plus a commercial hosted product
  confidence: high
  source:
  - license
  - openapi
  - pricing
  generated: '2026-08-28'
  method: derived
accessModel:
  pricing: free
  onboarding: self-serve
  trial: false
  try_now: true
  public: false
  label: Free · Self-serve signup
  confidence: medium
  source:
  - plans
  - authentication
  - security
  generated: '2026-09-03'
  method: derived
image: https://www.payments.service.gov.uk/assets/images/govuk-pay-logo.png
tags:
- Payments
- Government
- UK
- Public Sector
- REST
- PCI DSS
- Refunds
- Recurring Payments
- Webhook
tags_raw:
- Payments
- Government
- UK
- Public Sector
- REST
- PCI DSS
- Refunds
- Recurring Payments
- Webhooks
created: '2026-06-13'
modified: '2026-06-13'
url: https://github.com/api-evangelist/gov-uk-pay/blob/main/apis.yml
specificationVersion: '0.23'
apis:
- aid: gov-uk-pay:gov-uk-pay-agreements-api
  name: GOV.UK Pay Agreements API
  description: The Agreements API from GOV.UK Pay — 3 operation(s) for agreements.
  humanURL: https://docs.payments.service.gov.uk/
  baseURL: https://publicapi.payments.service.gov.uk/
  tags:
  - Agreements
  properties:
  - type: OpenAPI
    url: openapi/gov-uk-pay-agreements-api-openapi.yml
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://docs.payments.service.gov.uk/
  - type: Authentication
    url: https://docs.payments.service.gov.uk/api_reference/#authentication
  - type: Webhooks
    url: https://docs.payments.service.gov.uk/webhooks/
  - type: RateLimits
    url: rate-limits/rate-limits.yml
  - type: Plans
    url: plans/plans.yml
  - type: FinOps
    url: finops/finops.yml
  - type: GitHubRepository
    url: https://github.com/alphagov/pay-publicapi
  - type: StatusPage
    url: https://payments.statuspage.io/
  - type: TermsOfService
    url: https://www.payments.service.gov.uk/terms/
  - type: PrivacyPolicy
    url: https://www.payments.service.gov.uk/privacy/
- aid: gov-uk-pay:gov-uk-pay-authorise-card-payments-api
  name: GOV.UK Pay Authorise card payments API
  description: The Authorise card payments API from GOV.UK Pay — 1 operation(s) for authorise card payments.
  humanURL: https://docs.payments.service.gov.uk/
  baseURL: https://publicapi.payments.service.gov.uk/
  tags:
  - Authorise card payments
  properties:
  - type: OpenAPI
    url: openapi/gov-uk-pay-authorise-card-payments-api-openapi.yml
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://docs.payments.service.gov.uk/
  - type: Authentication
    url: https://docs.payments.service.gov.uk/api_reference/#authentication
  - type: Webhooks
    url: https://docs.payments.service.gov.uk/webhooks/
  - type: RateLimits
    url: rate-limits/rate-limits.yml
  - type: Plans
    url: plans/plans.yml
  - type: FinOps
    url: finops/finops.yml
  - type: GitHubRepository
    url: https://github.com/alphagov/pay-publicapi
  - type: StatusPage
    url: https://payments.statuspage.io/
  - type: TermsOfService
    url: https://www.payments.service.gov.uk/terms/
  - type: PrivacyPolicy
    url: https://www.payments.service.gov.uk/privacy/
- aid: gov-uk-pay:gov-uk-pay-card-payments-api
  name: GOV.UK Pay Card payments API
  description: The Card payments API from GOV.UK Pay — 5 operation(s) for card payments.
  humanURL: https://docs.payments.service.gov.uk/
  baseURL: https://publicapi.payments.service.gov.uk/
  tags:
  - Card Payments
  tags_raw:
  - Card payments
  properties:
  - type: OpenAPI
    url: openapi/gov-uk-pay-card-payments-api-openapi.yml
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://docs.payments.service.gov.uk/
  - type: Authentication
    url: https://docs.payments.service.gov.uk/api_reference/#authentication
  - type: Webhooks
    url: https://docs.payments.service.gov.uk/webhooks/
  - type: RateLimits
    url: rate-limits/rate-limits.yml
  - type: Plans
    url: plans/plans.yml
  - type: FinOps
    url: finops/finops.yml
  - type: GitHubRepository
    url: https://github.com/alphagov/pay-publicapi
  - type: StatusPage
    url: https://payments.statuspage.io/
  - type: TermsOfService
    url: https://www.payments.service.gov.uk/terms/
  - type: PrivacyPolicy
    url: https://www.payments.service.gov.uk/privacy/
- aid: gov-uk-pay:gov-uk-pay-disputes-api
  name: GOV.UK Pay Disputes API
  description: The Disputes API from GOV.UK Pay — 1 operation(s) for disputes.
  humanURL: https://docs.payments.service.gov.uk/
  baseURL: https://publicapi.payments.service.gov.uk/
  tags:
  - Disputes
  properties:
  - type: OpenAPI
    url: openapi/gov-uk-pay-disputes-api-openapi.yml
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://docs.payments.service.gov.uk/
  - type: Authentication
    url: https://docs.payments.service.gov.uk/api_reference/#authentication
  - type: Webhooks
    url: https://docs.payments.service.gov.uk/webhooks/
  - type: RateLimits
    url: rate-limits/rate-limits.yml
  - type: Plans
    url: plans/plans.yml
  - type: FinOps
    url: finops/finops.yml
  - type: GitHubRepository
    url: https://github.com/alphagov/pay-publicapi
  - type: StatusPage
    url: https://payments.statuspage.io/
  - type: TermsOfService
    url: https://www.payments.service.gov.uk/terms/
  - type: PrivacyPolicy
    url: https://www.payments.service.gov.uk/privacy/
- aid: gov-uk-pay:gov-uk-pay-refunding-card-payments-api
  name: GOV.UK Pay Refunding card payments API
  description: The Refunding card payments API from GOV.UK Pay — 3 operation(s) for refunding card payments.
  humanURL: https://docs.payments.service.gov.uk/
  baseURL: https://publicapi.payments.service.gov.uk/
  tags:
  - Refunding card payments
  properties:
  - type: OpenAPI
    url: openapi/gov-uk-pay-refunding-card-payments-api-openapi.yml
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://docs.payments.service.gov.uk/
  - type: Authentication
    url: https://docs.payments.service.gov.uk/api_reference/#authentication
  - type: Webhooks
    url: https://docs.payments.service.gov.uk/webhooks/
  - type: RateLimits
    url: rate-limits/rate-limits.yml
  - type: Plans
    url: plans/plans.yml
  - type: FinOps
    url: finops/finops.yml
  - type: GitHubRepository
    url: https://github.com/alphagov/pay-publicapi
  - type: StatusPage
    url: https://payments.statuspage.io/
  - type: TermsOfService
    url: https://www.payments.service.gov.uk/terms/
  - type: PrivacyPolicy
    url: https://www.payments.service.gov.uk/privacy/
maintainers:
- FN: Government Digital Service
  url: https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/government-digital-service
  email: govuk-pay-support@digital.cabinet-office.gov.uk
common:
- type: IssueTracker
  url: https://github.com/alphagov/pay-publicapi/issues
- type: Releases
  url: https://github.com/alphagov/pay-publicapi/releases
- type: CodeOfConduct
  url: https://github.com/alphagov/.github/blob/main/CODE_OF_CONDUCT.md
- type: ContributionGuide
  url: https://github.com/alphagov/pay-publicapi/blob/master/CONTRIBUTING.md
- type: License
  name: MIT
  url: https://github.com/alphagov/pay-publicapi/blob/master/LICENSE
- type: AgenticAccess
  url: agentic-access/gov-uk-pay-agentic-access.yml
- type: TrustCenter
  url: security/gov-uk-pay-trust-center.yml
- type: DomainSecurity
  url: security/gov-uk-pay-domain-security.yml
- type: Authentication
  url: authentication/gov-uk-pay-authentication.yml

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